The beginning seemed like forever ago. “The real beginning?” Ginta asked through a smile that was more grimace than delight. “Was a lot like now. Snow, hypothermia, mission gone tits up, and Kakashi summoning dogs to deal with it.”

Asuma didn’t look like he understood that at all.

“S’not important, “Ginta told him. “Just, that was when I met him. Kakashi, I mean. In... November? No, December. I already knew Ryouma, but I didn’t know he was gonna join ANBU. Also I thought he was straight. Not important, either.”

It wasn’t. Wasn’t important.

Asuma just looked down at him, steady and present. Waiting.

“They were lovers. Are lovers,” he corrected himself. “They’re lovers. Did you know that? That’s important.”

Asuma nodded. “I got the memo.”

“They had a fight. After... No before... I don’t know. A while ago. A few weeks ago. I was in the hospital and Kakashi was too, and he and Ryouma had a fight about something. Then Ryouma fucked off on a mission with some girl and slept with her and then he OD’d on soldier pills. He had a problem with them.”

Asuma nodded again. Not judging — Ryouma was hardly the only agent in ANBU to overuse soldier pills. Not touching, either. Ginta shivered, and for a minute he wished Asuma would put his hand back on him.

“Kakashi OD’d on soldier pills, too, getting me home from my mission. That’s why he was in the hospital with me. He nearly bled out because he fucked his clotting up—” Cold clenched around Ginta’s gut in a nauseating stranglehold. “You gotta tell the medic. Tell her now. That was only a few weeks ago.”

From the other side of the tent, a sharp female voice said, "I heard you. It's fine. He's clotting."

Asuma very carefully set his hand against Ginta's arm, easing the flow of heat back into him. "Stay calm, okay? Otherwise she's gonna get her grouch on."

The warmth helped. Or maybe the connection. Ginta shut his eye and concentrated on the heat spiraling into him from Asuma’s palm, the burning throb in his face, and the sharp, distracting ache in his ankle. Had he rebroken it?

When he opened his eye again, Asuma was looking at him with inscrutable concern.

Ginta felt more sick than ever.

“Ryouma came to see me, told me about the fight and the girl. He was all bruised the hell up, and I told him he’d better get his shit together and stop ODing on the pills. I was pissed at him, Asuma. It was like he was trying to stroke out or bleed out. Like Kakashi pushed himself that hard, so Ryouma had to, too, to prove himself or something, to be worthy of— I don’t know. And it was so fucked up. It was so fucked up... Everything about it, and me being in the middle of it.”

Asuma nodded, a bare hint of movement. His hand didn’t leave Ginta’s shoulder, and his eyes didn’t leave Ginta’s face.

“Then Ryouma was gone. And gone. And there was something suspicious about the whole thing. He was ‘on mission’ and then ‘classified’ and they were sending out search teams but not saying it was for him, and they were lying about it. Lying to me, to Kakashi. Said Ryouma was just taking one mission after the other, we’d just missed him, but he was missing. He was fucking missing for three weeks, and I figured it out. I went and told Arakaki about the soldier pills and everything and my suspicion and he told me to stand down. And... Kakashi’s my— Was my friend. If Arakaki and your dad couldn’t have the decency to tell the man his lover was missing, then... Then someone else had to. So I did.”

“I can guess how that went,” Asuma said. He glanced fleetingly at Kakashi, but turned his focus back on Ginta. “How’d you both end up in the hole?”

“I told Kakashi what I’d pieced together, but... I didn’t show him my maps. I made him take me with him. Because... Because if he went out here alone, he was going to just get as lost as Ryouma is. And I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to lose him, too.” Ginta swallowed, tasting blood at the back of his throat.

“Worked great, didn’t it? I’m a fucking genius.”